


ambrosia, rosy-red

by serinesaccade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Falling In Love, Identity Reveal, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Mutual Pining, Persephone Goes Willingly With Hades (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Pining, Pining Enjolras, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, do not be alarmed, who is persephone and who is hades may alarm u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26332324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serinesaccade/pseuds/serinesaccade
Summary: As one of the three, the inheritors of the Titans, his mother and everyone else had told him that Hades did not deign to gift his presence. He was a god among gods, and busy ruling a realm. Now he is busy gathering smaller shades close around his cloak, guiding. Leading.Here he is, a greeting to just another batch of the wretched. Grantaire thinks of him in the clouds, a bead of ambrosia sliding down the perfect column of his throat as he throws his golden head back, grins at Zeus and Poseidon as one.He listens, he sees, he remembers. His fingers itch to drip with color. His dust-dead heart gives one shaking, rasping beat.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 45
Kudos: 161





	ambrosia, rosy-red

**Author's Note:**

> Just pretend all the shitty & questionable things the les mis versions of the Greek gods did (Zeus babyyy I’m lookin at you) is just very exaggerated hot goss about some drunken adventures. These kids want the best. they did no wrong  
> Did I technically obey the story beats of Persephone/hades? Sure. Is it at all in the original spirit? Naw son  
> Does Apollo show up? No. no. I am tired  
> this is not a similar writing style necessarily to whatever else I've put here so *explosions*  
> possible warnings: there is technically death but it's.. the underworld?? like?? there has to be. basically a description of depression from R but nothing explicit.

Grantaire didn’t _mean_ to go to the Underworld, but sometimes, the hangover is just that bad. Or perhaps—the company was that good.

For all that they rule over them, the gods understand little of mortals. His mother can’t tell the years or the generations apart, walks the earth at harvest and views the people and golden fields the same. You don’t mourn a stalk of wheat among the crop.

But Grantaire’s problem—his entire problem—is that he is a god of flowers, and Spring.

For the most part, flowers are not functional. They can _be_ just for the beauty of existing, and that’s probably why he used to make so many of them. Painted careful veins on the leaves, unrolled velvet petals, threatened thorns when he felt caged by Olympus.

Grantaire doesn’t make flowers these days. No mortal notices, that their cultivated beds are dull and too repetitive and the wildflowers don’t bloom across the hills, because they are at war.

Or almost no one did. Then there was a someone, with flowers in their braid, who blushed at him but still led Grantaire back to their friends to say hello. Grantaire liked them, all of them, laughed and drank with them a whole Spring in the evenings. Walked the earth and brought Spring in the light of morning.

Then Summer, with its oppressive heat, the earth cracking and drying, plants snaking up as best they could.

When it was Summer, the flowers dried and cracked, fell out of the braid. They squeezed Grantaire’s shoulders, and said, soft, _this effort is for good_. Each friend tucking coins beneath their tongues before they left, giving their pleas and offerings. In the choking humidity, and before soldiers, they’d bled out. The coin is too metallic in Grantaire’s mouth. It is the taste of blood. He does not spit it out, and he lays down. Grantaire follows.

* * *

Perhaps it should not be possible, but the ferry is bigger than he’d imagined. They pay their tolls, and no one looks at him, and Grantaire could make the earth even here burst into life, but he doesn’t. Grantaire goes down, for it is a river and they cross but also dive, somehow. End up on another side.

It confirms what he’d long suspected. That which he can tell no other soul. Spring’s heart is dead. Life’s heart is unbeating, because he could come here, and has not felt joy in many seasons from painting on pollen or sprinkling seeds or coaxing honeycombs.

The only thing Grantaire misses is the sun. Even if Apollo and Helios themselves hold little interest for him. Sometimes, in the warmth of the sun, Grantaire still felt alive.

Jehan holds his arm, face drawn, and Grantaire has heard none of the dead speak, so he doesn’t either, for the first leg of the journey. Then Jehan turns to him, eyes luminous, and says, “they did not turn those without coin away.”

This doesn’t surprise Grantaire, because he’d been tempted to sneak the ragged small ones every last ounce of coin he possessed. Before that’d been necessary, the ferry gates had opened.

“No,” he agrees. “Perhaps the toll was never real. But what do mortal men truly know, of the realm of the dead?”

Perhaps it is cruel to say, as an immortal, but it is true. Clearly immortals do not know, either.

“Grantaire,” Jehan says, clinging, “I am afraid.”

“If there was a group that deserved Elysium,” says Grantaire, “it would be yours, my friend.”

He can still mean that, with a brown and cracked heart. He means it, but does not dare send up a prayer.

The ferry docks on the other side of the Styx, and Grantaire realizes he doesn’t know what he’s done. What he’s meant to do next. So when Jehan walks forward, arm in arm, all he does is fall in step. From afar, up above in a world of going _down down down_ , stands someone cloaked in red.

“Welcome,” he says, “to these lands. I’m sure you are weary. If you are found good of heart, this will be a place of rest. If you spent your days crushing your kin beneath your boots, this will be your reckoning. Your repentance. The Judge awaits.”

It seems this is all, but it stays, somehow. That someone with power here, in this place unknown both to the Gods of Olympus and mortal living men, views the Underworld this way. Sees death as a place of rest. An end to misery. A chance to be well, or repent.

 _These lands_ , he’d said, but Grantaire looks up, feeling the vines around his every vein tighten in anticipation. Grantaire lifts his head, and he sees—

Hades does not often show his face on Olympus, but when he does, only Aphrodite could compare. Here, in the depths of hell, he is no less stunning.

As one of the three, the inheritors of the Titans, his mother and everyone else had told him that Hades did not deign to gift his presence. He was a busy god. Now he is busy gathering smaller shades close around his cloak, guiding. Leading.

Here he is, a greeting to just another batch of the wretched. Grantaire thinks of him in the clouds, a bead of ambrosia sliding down the perfect column of his throat as he throws his golden head back, grins at Zeus and Poseidon as one.

He listens, he _sees_ , he remembers, and his fingers itch to drip with color. His dust heart gives one shaking, rasping beat.

That’s when he hears the howling. The _snarling_. Cerberus, in all its sharp-toothed glory, is bounding for them, shades spinning out of its path, left and right.

“It’s me,” Jehan says, nearly sobs, “I killed a man, Grantaire, I knew better—“

Shoving Jehan behind, Grantaire steps between them, because he should’ve known better too.

“You brought over someone that isn’t _dead_?” Says Hades, from above and ahead, and it must be to Charon.

“They were dead, I’ve told you that you should let me charge the toll and get a good look, milord—“

“ _Title,”_ Hades says, seemingly as a reflex, and then the shadows twist and part before Grantaire to shine forth—

“Hello,” says Grantaire, and smiles easy. “Nice realm you have, here.”

What has he _done_ , what has he done, his mother will kill him and send him straight back if he manages to escape this. One does not _cross into the Underworld._

“What’s going on,” Jehan breathes behind him, and fuck. Hopefully Hades doesn’t hold anything against them.

No, his fury seems directed at Grantaire.

“ _What are you doing here_ ,” he seethes, in something more ancient than Greek. “Why are you—like _that_. Show yourself!”

Grantaire looks down. He is wearing what he wore when the others died, which is to say, it is plain. Ragged. Grantaire was not trying to hide.

“This is just what I look like,” he says, and pleads for it to be plain. It’s not a lie. Hades has never seen him, never interacted, since he settled into his true appearance, instead of the youth of Kore.

“Gods,” Hades says, and he’s circling, shades dispersing, all but Jehan, “do not behave this way. What are your motivations?”

Biting his lip, Grantaire swallows and says, “curiosity.”

Except—it was moreso acceptance. Escape. Even a hint of _loyalty_ , for the mortal behind him, that had managed to make Grantaire feel, just a little, with their smiles and their poetry and their friendship.

“I don’t believe you,” Hades cuts, “I don’t trust you, but now you are here. The Underworld will reveal you eventually. Whatever game you are playing will become less entertaining, I’m sure, once you have exhausted the realm’s limited novelty to you.”

Jehan is here. A thousand dead poets, and painters, and artists of every flair—they are here. Grantaire suspects the realm holds many novelties, but it seems foolish to try and explain. Not when Cerberus could rip his flowery, greasy head off with a flick of his master’s long fingers.

“Have you never found yourself seated at a game of cards or dice without understanding quite how you got there?” Grantaire tries. Hades gives a fiery scowl, a _no_.

“Dionysus?” He demands, because of course he does.

“The appeal of the Underworld is limited for Dionysus indeed,” Grantaire reminds. “You have spirits, but none of the spirits he’d favor.”

Those blue eyes narrow, and Hades says, “none that you can drink.”

So the Underworld does have alcohol, potentially a river of it, and yet—

“Not to my tastes?” Grantaire tries.

Hades hisses, “you are _not to eat or drink here_.”

 _How, then_ , Grantaire thinks, _is this meant to be a place of rest?_

“Very well,” Grantaire agrees, if only because Jehan is still at his back, as of yet unnoticed.

“When you tire of this facade,” Hades says, “you will return to Olympus. In the meantime, you can’t hurt the shades or stay with them, you—”

“Grantaire?”

Oh, no, no. “Jehan,” he says, back to Greek, trying to be as gentle and dismissive as possible, “don’t wait for this lout.” He gives a lopsided grin, gestures to himself. “Go to the judge. You know you won’t be found wanting. I’ll—“ he looks at Hades, from the corner of his eye, and thinks _he was merciful to the others_. “I’ll just walk them over.”

“Do what you like,” Hades says, still scathing, but it seems he’s decided there are more important things to do than interrogate whatever minor godling stumbled into his realm. The black earth shifts, and then Hades is gone, back to the lead. Cerberus lumbers after him, snapping quiet and slow.

“You spoke to him,” Jehan says, soft. Almost wondering. “The words were so beautiful. What language…?”

A small concession, for a large joy. It’s apt. And now Jehan, bright Jehan, is going to the judge, to the fields. It will not matter if they know.

“Little Jehan,” he says, “my darling. I have a deathbed confession to make.”

Jehan links their arms, and says, wide-eyed, “you’re a god.”

So wise. There is intelligence wasted on such brief lives, so much vibrancy wasted on the short-lived while Grantaire lives, plain and dull, forever.

“I wanted to save you,” Grantaire says, because this is the true confession. It’s more important than—than whatever Goddess he’s supposed to be. “I wanted, I tried, but I couldn’t. Ares is—Ares demands, and it isn’t my place.”

“But you were still there for me,” says Jehan, like that made a difference. “May I ask which god you are?”

A minor god, Grantaire wants to lie. You haven’t heard my name; I have no temples. Only frogs and cicadas sing of me, to me.

Instead, he tucks a seed into Jehan’s palm, and makes it sprout. Lets leaves curl between shaking knuckles, still smeared with ink.

“Don’t say the name,” Grantaire warns, because—the Underworld seems vast, and empty, but he suspects more can be heard than expected.

“I’ve prayed to you,” Jehan whispers, “for inspiration, for joy, for breath, for winter to end,” and Grantaire—he—

“I know,” he says. Ahead, Hades alone blazes in the vast, limitless dark. “I heard you.”

But hear is all he could do. 

* * *

When the judge—Javert, he thinks—takes the shades, with some kind of unstated warning from Hades, Grantaire realizes he’s been told not to go.

If he isn’t going to be wandering the fields, he—

“I’ll make you up a bed,” Hades says, instead of _the nymphs_ or _the shades_ or any other creature meant to serve him in between. “There is a guest room.”

Grantaire blinks at him. “I thought you had a castle, don’t you have a guest _wing_?”

Hades scowls and says, “I am not a king or emperor. The castle has been given over to the Asphodel fields, to be shared among them.”

Hades is not a king, he is a god, and he’s unsatisfied with the mildest demotion. No, he goes all the way to—to an everyday man.

“I see,” says Grantaire.

“If it is unsuitable,” says Hades, “may I suggest you return to Olympus?”

“It’s fine,” says Grantaire, “I’ve slept on tables and streets and forest floors, a bed itself is a luxury.”

“So you say,” says Hades, and Grantaire mutters, _so I do_. They are not off to a wonderful start, but Hades does not shove Grantaire into the Styx or summon some creature or Zeus to cart Grantaire off. That is blessing enough. As promised, he makes Grantaire up a modest room and leaves him to it.

Grantaire wonders who ordinarily would stay here. Who has been here, before Grantaire, and perhaps had a warmer welcome.

It does not matter, that his heart beat for Hades. Sometimes in the Spring his heart will beat, once, at a baby’s cry. The opening of a flower to a clear, cloudlessly blue sky. Is that not living enough?

Grantaire is life. He should know.

He does not, anymore.

“When are you leaving,” Hades asks, with consistent resignation and frequency. He makes the Underworld so serious, when it doesn’t have to be. There’s freedom and peace and even the flames of rebellion, here, among men who inquire still about the world above. The world, Grantaire thinks privately, of suffering. The Styx here is glassy and soundless except in his dreams; the ferry floats and dives and reflects, far away. The figures on the far-off shore are small but—infinite. _I’ll paint it_ , Grantaire thinks, and oh, he hasn’t had that thought in some time.

“Soon,” Grantaire lies, he _promises_ , “you know it’ll be soon. A godling like me, what entertainment could I possibly find here for long?”

“Fine,” Hades always says, but this. This is less consistent. It starts harsh, but somewhere along the way, Grantaire loses his ability to read the clean-cut lines of that perfect face. Perhaps it is softened disapproval. Perhaps it is his own form of boredom. “Fine,” Hades says, and leaves him, and then Grantaire stays.

* * *

Things are fine, they are all fine, even if the Underworld is harder to coax to life and bloom than the earth above. Grantaire is painting again, and humming under his breath. Spinning into dance steps and sleeping through the Underworld’s approximation of night. Visiting a Jehan who is hale and hearty.

And, as Hades reminds him on the daily, he is not drinking. He _cannot_ be drinking. For once, Grantaire obeys.

Once it becomes clear Grantaire is not here to view the shades like a sideshow, Hades even invites him along on his daily circling of the realm. After a while of that, he leads Grantaire to the strangest collection of humans and gods he’s seen.

He’s even invited Jehan, who falls into the group of philosophers and great thinkers of ages gone by like they’re coming home.

Grantaire says nothing, but ribs and smiles with them. It would be all fun, except after so long Hades inevitably turns serious and murmurs, “I would have us discuss the current state of Athens.”

And that’s all it takes. Suddenly, the group is full of energy and fire, postulating and recommending, until they have some kind of path forward. Hades nods, and is surprisingly quiet for a god in a room among men, taking notes painstakingly on parchment. It is only at the end that he rolls the parchment and says, “it shall be done.”

Like that’s it. Like he is going to fix Athens, overnight, with the willpower of twenty dead men. But perhaps that could be done well, if—if he—

“Are you going to threaten someone’s life?” Grantaire asks, when they’re headed back, and Hades looks to him sharply.

“I do not usually control death. I merely help govern what happens after.”

 _Then how are you supposed to accomplish anything_ , Grantaire thinks, but he doesn’t quite summon up the energy to say it.

“When you finish orating at the ruler of Athens and the city fortuitously transforms overnight,” Grantaire sighs, “let me know.”

“I will appear to his prophet in the night,” Hades says. “It will be like a dream. They will foretell what will happen to his people if he continues on this way.”

“Ah, a dream for someone else, how terrifying. I don’t think he’ll care,” Grantaire snorts, before he can think better of it. “There’s a better way to get your genius collection’s list of demands.”

“Do tell,” Hades murmurs, with the slightest air of amusement.

Grantaire sighs again, raises a hand to lay out his vision, palm up. “Dramatics are worth more than anything. Appear in a fiery chariot. Intensify your stare, like you so love to do in my direction, and look very furiously disappointed. Yes, just like that.” Hades scowls at him. “Threaten fire and brimstone and death. Have your demon horses stomp their hooves, foretell curses and suffering and some bird gobbling at his liver for all eternity. Godly dramatics tend to inspire change.”

“Zeus’ fits do seem to reap some kind of reward,” Hades half-grumbles. He sounds like he is—considering it. Considering Grantaire.

He doesn’t even know who Grantaire is. But perhaps, with Hades, that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t seem to care that Jehan is a dead mortal, or even _why_ Jehan is dead, just that Jehan holds their own with the other philosophers. Hades, in all his cold marble perfection, does not damn the pathetic shades who roam. Doesn’t turn them away. Doesn’t let the boatman swindle. He welcomes them, and shows them peace after a life of suffering. Looks to make their lives better up above, too.

But Grantaire is not an ordinary man. He has no doubt there will be expectations, for him, ones he will not meet. It doesn’t stop him, though. It doesn’t stop him from joining Hades on his rounds, or going to meetings, or stepping to his side when he returns from Athens, grinning.

Nothing stops Grantaire, because he should’ve stopped himself, but he couldn’t. And then, one plain evening after a long discussion, Hades stretches, smiles, and bids him goodnight.

Grantaire smiles back, though there’s something burning and splintering in his throat. He waits patiently, until Hades disappears to his chamber and Grantaire can take off, tumbling into the deadwoods around Hades’ home.

 _When were they alive?_ He’d asked, once, because to be dead, didn’t something have to have been alive? _Are trees like people—do they ferry? Acorns and pine their toll?_

Except Hades just shook his head, and said, _some things have never been alive. Some things will always continue on that way_.

Sometimes Grantaire wonders if he is one of those things. He has not felt alive for so long, except—tonight he is alive, and in pain.

He stumbles to the gnarled roots of a deadwood, and chokes on it, can’t catch his breath in air that seems to no longer exist. He heaves, and pushes, and up it comes, splattered in his own golden blood. A seed. Deep in slumber. No seed he recognizes, and so quiet that even if he felt strong enough to ask it to grow, he knows it wouldn’t.

So Grantaire scoops up the dirt splattered in his own ichor, and carries it back in his tunic, to dump it in a pot he steals from the kitchen. Hades will not miss it, he doesn’t think; Hades does not pay attention to small things. The state of his house, or the worship on the shades faces when he passes by, or the worship on Grantaire’s when he turns around.

He plants the seed, and doesn’t hope.

* * *

There is no hope to even be had, for a long while. Hades keeps busy around his realm, and Grantaire does not always trail him. In the twilight Hades returns, and Grantaire prods until the worried crinkle to his brow gives way to fire or laughter. Once, when Hades returns, weighed from the Fields of Punishment, he even has Grantaire pour him a decanter of ambrosia, lets him create a laconica bath with the lava coals of the Underworld.

“You are not a servant,” Hades reminds him, almost grumpily. Even so, he breathes the steam deep.

“I thought you treated gods and men alike,” is all Grantaire says, pouring on more water to the coals.

“None,” Hades says, “should be servants. Fair wages and equal social status are the very least they should expect.”

Grantaire does not tell him that acts of love cannot demand wages. He is not Aphrodite, and his heart only takes a rasping, pollen-heavy beat once a day or so. When he sees Hades in Elysium by the light of morning. When he speaks of equal social status. When he reads and does little activity at all.

Hades does keep occupied, which is why Grantaire does not expect him home at midday. Luckily he comes when the paints are mixed. Explaining how he pulled ruby red madder flower, or woad, or saffron from between his teeth as he needed each color, like he’d forgotten the stem was there—Grantaire doesn’t know if he could.

Unfortunately, he comes instead when Grantaire is putting the finishing touches to a simple study of him, reclining, draped in red. It should barely be suggestive. Except—it is Grantaire’s. His mind’s eye, his fingers on the brush. Before he even realizes Hades has entered the room, he’s over Grantaire’s shoulder, golden head tilted and arm curved in almost too statuesque thought.

“Oh,” says Hades. He goes very quiet. “You desire me.”

“Well,” says Grantaire, “yes,” because it’s obvious.

“My appearance can change. My powers are not worth much outside the Underworld. And while Zeus and Poseidon will listen to me, I have sworn to myself to not exert undue influence—“

“You think I desire your power?” Grantaire has to laugh. “You hardly wield it! Your every effort here is to treat mortal men with balance and dignity.”

Hades stiffens, becomes a point of heat in the cold. “That is true,” he grits.

“I am not saying they don’t deserve it,” Grantaire tries to soften himself. “I—I love them as well.”

“I know,” Hades murmurs, seeming to back down. “You followed your human lover here, provided comfort. There are not many gods who would.”

Grantaire blinks at him. “Jehan? They—they are my friend. Though you’ve likely got my lovers here, the few and far between.” His mother kept too tight a leash for lovers, but Grantaire is Spring, is animals mating in the wilds, and he was… highly motivated.

Hades stares. “Jehan is not your lover.”

“They are a poet,” Grantaire says, on a shrug. Perhaps it is the godly notion that mortals are only good for a romp in the hay that led Hades to this level of shock. “Their art pleases me.” And they were his friend.

There is consideration for this, or at least that’s what Grantaire thinks, until, “if not power, then what?”

“What?” Grantaire says.

“What appeals to you,” Hades clarifies, “about me.”

The opposite question would be easier. He sets down his brush, his paints, looks away from the easel. Grantaire bites his lip, till he practically draws golden blood, finally admits, “many things. Your empathy. Your morality. Your ridiculous speeches to men long dead on how the world should work.” He swallows. “I imagine you have lovers aplenty, great philosophers and politicians, with endless time on their hands. That I desire you doesn’t mean I’m—suggesting. Any kind of action to be taken.” And it’s the truth. Grantaire does not expect anything. He’s already been granted so much. “I’m but a godling that stumbled uninvited into your realms. I spend all my days arguing with you and producing my own depressing art, I hardly expect—“

Hades kisses him.

“I don’t take lovers,” he says, after.

“Kisses are typically between lovers,” Grantaire reminds him honestly, because perhaps he does not know.

“I don’t understand your art,” Hades admits. “But I appreciate it. I appreciate the way you interact with the shades. Your philosophical arguments are frustrating, but even they have special value.”

“All right,” says Grantaire, and then their mouths are together again, surprisingly warm. “To clarify,” against Hades’ lips, “this is kissing.”

“I know,” Hades says back, wryly. “I’m suggesting—don’t be obtuse. I only mean I haven’t. Not that I don’t wish to, with you.”

“ _What_ ,” says Grantaire, and this—not them being entwined, not Hades’ following sigh—is what shocks him.

“Call me Enjolras,” he says, and shrugs, and then ducks closer again. His dry heart, green and flourishing anew, speeds up.

“I—you don’t know what I am,” Grantaire reminds, feeling wild.

“I know who you are. So it doesn’t matter,” says Enjolras, “does it?”

 _It might_ , Grantaire thinks, but instead, he says, “guess. What I am.”

“A Muse,” Enjolras says immediately, and Grantaire laughs, tugs him closer. Watches his paint-dyed fingers streak over Enjolras’ eternal perfection. Red; saffron yellow-gold. The colors that he can make Grantaire feel.

“No,” he grins, “but a promising start.”

* * *

During, he has to remind himself to be still. To not burst, with everything. He hasn’t had to restrain himself in so long, to push down buds and roots and branches. Nothing had been fertile, or forgiving, in him. In the realm of the dead, somehow, he remembers how to live.

Hades— _Enjolras_ —brings the first cool rain.

“Enjolras,” he says, and he hasn’t used a common name for another God in too long. “ _Enjolras_.”

“It’s all right,” Enjolras says, into his bare shoulder, almost nonsensical, “it’s going to be all right.” Grantaire believes him.

And he doesn’t know, that Grantaire is supposed to be Spring, but he cares all the same. There’s something in that which makes Grantaire hold tighter. Warm and slick everywhere, and his face, now, is damp with tears. Inside his ribcage, there’s fluttering, the beating of sparrow wings. Migrating home.

“There’s noise,” Enjolras murmurs, brow furrowing, and Grantaire takes his palm, lays it flat to his chest. Enjolras could shovel it out, tear it from the tender root, all the wretched, delicate newness of it.

“Don’t worry,” Grantaire tells him. “It’s just my heart.”

There’s no reply, but his golden fingers splay, settle. Like pressing down a seed. Like filling the earth.

“Grantaire,” he says, like a question, but they can’t stop for long enough to answer.

* * *

One morning, when he awakes, Enjolras’ chambers are still dark. Haven’t yet approximated the glow of morning. His heart is lush in his chest, and beats slow and steady, and—Enjolras has disappeared, probably to speak to the shades or make a welcome. Enjolras does not often sleep in. So Grantaire stretches, brushes a thumb over his own cheekbone, where Enjolras had kissed him before he left. The morning isn’t anything out of the ordinary, now. Maybe that’s why—why he _feels_ , this morning. Something bursting.

It is probably foolish, to think he can hide something from Enjolras here, in his own realm, but the urge to grow, to flourish, is stronger than any common sense. He finds the patch, off to the side of Enjolras’ home, deep in the deadwoods. It’s only then that he lets himself think of it, to glow.

Enjolras has smiled for weeks, at him, Enjolras has told him his common name, permitted—many times, now, he’d permitted—

Grantaire covers his mouth, but it’s too late. He beams, and the blooms buoy the soles of his feet, his vine veins curl and sing. A heart that beats with the earth, and no one speaks of it, but in the Underworld there is earth all around, earth eternal, Grantaire feels so _full_ and _surrounded_ and _belov_ —

There’s a noise, so he wipes a thicket from his eyes, a poppy from his cheek, and looks.

Hades is there, tall, regal. Pale. Going paler.

“Persephone,” he says, hoarse and deep, and it sounds so _wrong_. A curse. “ _Persephone_?”

“I know,” Grantaire murmurs, the blooms peaking, beginning to shrivel and fall. “I know, I don’t much look it.”

He doesn’t mean that he’s a Goddess who rests naturally in the presentation of a man, though according to mortals, that part is surprising. Gods care not for minor details; Grantaire has been a woman and a man and a bird or cow, before. Grantaire can be almost anything.

No, Grantaire merely means that Spring is pure and beautiful, and he is ugly, down to his very core. Everyone forgets that part of Spring. The damp rain, the flourishing bacteria, the worms and beetles. The mulch and excrement, the reaching roots, the mud and dirt and _sweat_ of farmers. Flowers are what Spring produces, lifts up in offering. Spring itself is dirty. Spring is low.

“Why,” Enjolras says, and he sounds both confused and wretched. “This is the land of the _dead_.”

 _I belong here_ , Grantaire does not say. Instead: “I like it.”

Enjolras buries his face in his hands. “Your mother,” he muffles through his fingers, “thinks you’ve disappeared.”

In some ways, Grantaire has. The ideal offspring, for her, has never truly existed. Except—

“I’ve only been gone a little while.”

The hands lower, Enjolras straightening to full fearsomeness. “It has been a _season_.” Ah. Time spent in the Underworld, or perhaps just with Enjolras, speeds by. “She’s going to think I’ve—I’ve—“ Grantaire does not often see him at a loss of words, so he waits. Opens his palms, encouraging. “She’s going to think I kidnapped you!”

Shit.

“I’ll send her a sign,” Grantaire says weakly. His mother is controlling, but—a holiday. Maybe she will allow him a supervised, short holiday, with Hades dangling over her head. “A message, with little Hermes.” He comes when Grantaire calls, even though Gavroche slows for no one.

“Which could be coerced,” Enjolras reminds him, brittle. “Give me a good reason, any reason, why the Goddess of Spring would jump to spend a season with the miserable and clearly mortal, in the black and blood red of the Underworld?”

 _Because those mortals are an improvement_ , Grantaire does not say. _Because I am in love with you._ His mother will not consider this a reason; she will consider it a threat.

Besides, there is another truth, deeper. One his mother already knows and he’s willing to say, but a battle he cannot fight and win.

“She _chains me_ ,” he tells Enjolras. “I do my duty, I bring Spring, and for the rest of the year, she allows me nothing.”

Enjolras stares. Demeter’s love for her child is famed, and Grantaire supposes that perhaps it is a kind of love. Twisted and rotting, dark. Controlling. “Have you told Zeus this?”

“He knows,” Grantaire says. “Though—not the extent.” Telling Zeus, getting involvement, means putting humanity at risk. If the crop fails—if the fall never comes— “I can’t, Enjolras. She’ll wreck the harvest, if I put up a fight. You’re already upset about the flow into your realms, imagine the influx if I anger her.”

“It is her _duty_ ,” Enjolras fumes. “It’s what is right. Demeter must _do her moral duty_.”

“No,” laughs Grantaire. “No, she doesn’t have to, not every year.”

“She will listen to the triumvirate,” Enjolras says fiercely.

“She will _starve them first_!” He takes in a breath. “You don’t know her. I do.”

“I am starting to think,” says Enjolras, too flat, “that I do not know any of you gods, from above.”

It is unfair. Unfair, that Enjolras brought life to his heart just to crush the miniscule green tendrils, the sprouting hopes. It wasn’t supposed to matter. Enjolras said what he was didn’t matter.

“If I were mortal,” Grantaire spits, “if others kept me downtrodden, would you not fight for me?”

“I expect you to fight for _yourself!_ ” Enjolras explodes. “Take up your own shield and spear, your own banner! You are a goddess!”

Grantaire wants to tell him: _Spring is not a battle. I do not decimate the cold. I am an awakening. I am the hope that barely survives, what lives only to cyclically be crushed, again and again._ Spring can be beautiful, but it does not win wars. It this case, it does not even launch ships.

“That is your way,” is all he manages to say. “Me? I am a coward and a cynic. I have no faith in her kindness, or my own victory. She cares only for herself, Enjolras. You cannot make her care for the masses.” _Or for me._

“I care,” Enjolras hisses. “I will fight.”

“What you do matters little to those above.” Even the glories of Elysium hold pathetic sway, to men in life and immortals. “You are the keeper of dead men.”

He imagines, that because he’s just hurt Enjolras, that Enjolras feels the need to hurt him.

“All I see,” Enjolras says, “is that you don’t care, either. For anything.”

And—yes. Yes, that’s always been Grantaire’s fear, hasn’t it, for himself. Lodged deep and rotting at the wooden core of him. Now, he doesn’t know what to say. His tongue is buried in his clenched teeth, his body aches to wilt, and it’s all he can do to stand and meet the black-blue of Enjolras’ eyes.

After moments that feel like an eternity, Enjolras shakes his head, and _leaves_. The woods are still dead around him. Flowers flake at his feet. Shrivel. Still, his heart beats on.

“For you,” Grantaire tells the space he’s left, “I would’ve tried.”

* * *

When he sees Enjolras next, it is because he brings his chariot.

“I am returning you,” Enjolras says.

“Without my things?” Grantaire returns, bitterroot.

Enjolras’ dark horses stomp their feet, and gleam, but he waits. Turning, Grantaire goes into the house. Gathers up. His sketchbook, his paintings, the carved wooden figurines, the pot beneath his bed with the seed, which sits quiet and dreaming. Even he cannot foresee what will emerge.

“When you arrived you brought nothing with you,” says Enjolras, sounding unsure, as Grantaire loads. Snaps the reins, and opens a path to the sky through bedrock.

“There was nothing I wanted,” Grantaire says, as they climb, which is true. “Nothing of value.”

“A painting?” Enjolras tries. “A handheld carving?”

“Nothing,” Grantaire says. “Back then I wasn’t painting, or carving.”

“It was Spring,” Enjolras says, like he is trying to understand. Grantaire can almost feel the sun; they are almost to the surface. “You were occupied.”

“I was tired,” Grantaire shrugs.

“You did not—you did not plan? To avoid the surface by coming to the Underworld?”

Grantaire doesn’t look at him. “I was almost eaten by one of your dog’s heads. My friend died. Do you think I orchestrated that? Do I seem like someone with a plan? Athena would laugh.” His fists clench in the fabric of his clothes. “Did you tell Demeter?” He swallows, throat dry and constricting, vines clogging a well. “Is she waiting for me?”

Enjolras looks at him like he doesn’t understand. But Grantaire told him. He _told_. Perhaps Enjolras does not understand what it means, to be restricted. To be so afraid.

“She said she worried for you,” Enjolras says, and Grantaire raises his eyes, thinks of foxglove. Hemlock.

“Where are _your_ parents, Hades?” He sneers. “Do they worry for you?”

The Titans are in shambles, or imprisoned, or asleep. The triumvirate put them there.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras says, low and roiling, “she is already beginning to starve them. She claims it’s from grief.”

The chariot has surfaced, now, so there is little Grantaire can do. Once he sets foot to soil, Demeter could sense him, if she wished. It is raining; there are swirling clouds, and lightning.

The flashes don’t seem to touch Enjolras’ face. Possibly, because it already glows. “That she chains you,” he says, “what was that a metaphor for?”

“I am a flowery poet,” Grantaire half-laughs, half-sobs, “but I made no metaphor.”

Enjolras grips his hand. “I did not tell her,” he says. “I only wished to make things right. For humankind, and for you.”

There is more lightning, and then it takes form.

“Enjolras!” Zeus is calling, “Enjolras, you’re here?”

“Courfeyrac,” he says, and pulls away. “Here. I’ve brought him.”

“And I,” Zeus says, “have brought someone of my own.”

* * *

In the storm, Aphrodite has been kissed by droplets. His toga lies sheer, but he doesn’t seem to notice, merely sweeps back his fine curls and smiles at them.

“Hello,” he greets, warm. It is no wonder that Hephaestus loves him, Grantaire thinks. It is no wonder that Hephaestus, in her roughness, stays in her workshop and merely longs. “When I heard Hades was bringing you up, I thought I’d come along.”

“You knew,” Grantaire says, “where I was?”

“Of course,” says Aphrodite, without a shred of explanation, “oh, was it important?” Love is often distracted. Grantaire can empathize. “Are you getting out of the chariot?”

“No,” says Grantaire, too exhausted to explain. Perhaps Hades will make him. He didn’t think Enjolras forced people to do anything, but now they’re here, and she’s already starving them. Demeter’s already starving them, so it’s over, and— “actually.”

He swings up to stand, to step out, and someone takes his elbow.

“ _Wait_.” Hades’ hand is on his arm. “She’ll know. She’ll find you.”

“Isn’t that the point of this little endeavor?” Grantaire releases, and Hades stares at him.

“The _point_ ,” he says slowly, “is to tell Zeus what’s going on.”

“Hm, yes,” Zeus says, gaze almost palpable where it’s focused on Hades’ touch, blazing, on his arm. There is a natural electric magnetism to Zeus, but it is nothing for Grantaire, compared to Enjolras. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Still, Hades does not let go. At least not until Aphrodite smiles warmly and says, “I was so thrilled for you both. Grantaire, especially, to see your love realized! It’s incredible the first time, isn’t it?”

Breathing deep, scrunching his eyes shut, Grantaire really wishes love were a little less blind. Or—maybe more.

“Grantai—“ Hades begins, probably with a concerned furrow to his impeccable brow.

“ _Thank_ you,” Grantaire grits, “Marius.”

“No problem! No effort on my part at all.” Aphrodite beams. “Eponine was also pleased for you. Oh, I hope you don’t mind that I told her?”

“Wouldn’t have expected it to happen any other way,” Grantaire snorts, and at Hades’ sideways look, he clarifies quietly, “Hephaestus.”

Hephaestus rarely leaves her workshop. Perhaps this is why Demeter allowed their friendship. Maybe she would’ve allowed something with Enjolras, too, just for a little—

He’s on the surface, now. The ironically blissful stay in the land of the dead is over.

“Grantaire,” Hades says then. “You have to tell Courfeyrac what you told me.”

“Sure,” says Grantaire. “Love to. Look what it got me.”

There’s a slight pinch to his angelic face. Hades lays judgments upon literal murderers and the scum of the earth, but only Grantaire seems to annoy him.

“Let us _help_ you,” Hades hisses, surprisingly quiet. “As a group we can do something.”

 _What can you do_ , Grantaire thinks, dark, but—if there’s a chance, this is it. Zeus is the king of the gods. Hades presides over the dead. Even philosophical Poseidon would move, if they appealed to him and the cause was right.

Grantaire’s not sure he’s a rallying cause.

“Promise me,” is what he hears come out of his mouth. “Promise me you won’t let them all die.”

“I swear to you,” Hades says. He slides his hand from Grantaire’s arm to his neck, strokes at the edge of the stubble there. “I will do everything in my power. I love the people as you do.”

Hades wasn’t tossing him out of the underworld. He was facing the problem, as he always seems to do, bravely. Naively, a little, too. He does not yet understand living. Grantaire loves him still. Grantaire loves him always.

“A little differently than I do,” Grantaire says faintly, but he’s leaning into the touch all the same, and—Aphrodite is just _watching_.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says. Grantaire is already pulling away.

“Mind _me_ ,” breaks in Courfeyrac, “because I have a lot of questions at this point, and limited patience. My virginal best friend and lord of the dead rides in with the goddess of life on his arm, making uncharacteristic doe eyes while spouting doom and gloom, so I think I’m justified in asking: _what_ is going on?”

“Virginal,” giggles Marius. Hades does not even dignify this with a reaction.

“We’re lovers,” he says, simply, like he is not announcing this to the king of the gods and Aphrodite, like it’s something he can easily take back. Then again: _we’re lovers_. Not quite: _I love him_. “But more importantly, Demeter has been out of line. Grantaire?”

He’s spent so many centuries, first as a child and then as a grown goddess in his own right, not recognizing, or denying, that the way she treated him was _wrong_. That sealing him away from the world for most of the year, that keeping him chained in Olympus or in one of her estates on the earth, was not for his own protection. Not the way to treat one’s child.

Certainly, she fed him. Kept him in fineness and drink. Poured gold in his lap. Smiled at him and stroked his hair and said _it is such a shame you grew to look like this, dear_. When he was young, Grantaire looked different. More, he supposes, how Spring is envisioned, instead of what it actually is. When Grantaire said, _I wish to make flowers_ , she only said, _why? It is Summer_ , like flowers were only for a purpose, not part of his art, at the core of him. She didn’t let him roam, or dance, or create, or _love_. And—the fits she threw, the mildew and pestilence and rot she laid to the fields, if he disobeyed. If it had just been him—if it hadn’t hurt others—well. It had. So he stopped disobeying.

He stopped doing almost anything.

“Help me,” Grantaire hears himself plead. Now, he’s on the surface, and Enjolras is at his side. Leafy tendrils climb the chariot; there are posies and thorny roses dropping from the scarlet of his face. “She’s killing me. And if I don’t let her, she’ll hurt the humans. Please,” fauna at his feet, swelling, “Zeus, help me fight it.”

“He speaks the truth?” Zeus asks, eyes going to Enjolras, who nods. “Then come,” he says, after a long moment. “We will tell Poseidon, and as a whole, we will confront Demeter.”

* * *

Zeus tends to travel by cloud, as ridiculous as it seems, and he pats it in welcome. Enjolras doesn’t hesitate, in swinging himself out of the chariot, murmuring to Grantaire, “stay.” Taking his place, Aphrodite pokes wonderingly at a rosebud. Enjolras doesn’t turn around, just nods to the horses, and with bursts of fire and shadow all of them are lifting off into the sky.

Zeus and Enjolras are up ahead, but not so far that Grantaire can’t hear them.

“You swept the Goddess of Spring off to your sexy underground _lair_ ,” Zeus is accusing with a grin. “Yet with me it’s all _swans are a frightening bird_ and _making love in fog seems non-ideal_. I’d like to hear support now for my questionable romantic decisions.”

“No one was swept anywhere,” Hades sighs. Then, pointedly, looking over his shoulder to their chariot, “please, Courfeyrac, can we focus?”

“What’s in the pot?” Marius pipes up at Grantaire’s side, because he cannot focus. “It feels like love. A little—there’s something else, too.”

“Does everything feel like love to you?” Grantaire asks.

“Well, yes,” Marius nods. “But most everything is, to some degree. Not, I suppose, what you have with your mother.”

Pulling the pot against his chest, Grantaire does not reply.

“I don’t understand,” Marius says finally. “It would be so easy for her to love you. It would be so easy for her to bring the harvest, to feed every mouth—it would cost her nothing. But she won’t.”

“You forget,” Grantaire tries to smile wryly, “that some people just like power. And her chaining me—that’s possessiveness.”

“Power, too.”

Grantaire laughs. “I’m not powerful. I’m a sentient patch of walking wildflowers.”

“Demeter,” says Enjolras, suddenly behind them, and _Zeus_ , Grantaire forgets how fast he moves, “can’t awaken the world from freezing cold. Only you. Demeter does not create. She only reaps what you and men sow. Do you not think that makes you powerful?”

“No,” is all Grantaire can say, “Enjolras, no.”

Marius turns, practically alight, somehow brighter. “Gently,” he commands Enjolras. Like that makes a shred of sense.

“I am _trying_ ,” Enjolras says, frustrated as he always is.

“It’s all right,” Marius says, “it takes practice.”

“It’s a matter of _morality_ ,” Enjolras huffs. “Of good behavior, of consideration, surely—“

“Practice,” Marius interrupts, oddly firm. “I would know. It takes practice.”

“I agree with Marius,” Grantaire yawns, “on whatever, exactly, this topic is.” Grantaire pulls the pot closer still, and slides down in his seat, and lolls his head against the bed of moss that sprouted, at some point, on the headrest. “You two argue,” he finishes, “I’m napping, before we go diving into the ocean or condemning humanity to emaciation.”

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get much of a chance. Before long they are swinging down to a beach, and the waters are parting, and Zeus is jumping to the sand and merrily greeting: “Combeferre!”

“Circumstances aside,” Enjolras says, soft. “I’m pleased for us to see Combeferre and Courfeyrac. Together.”

Grantaire shuts his eyes, and pretends he was asleep. If Enjolras continues to permit him, he’s going to get the idea that it’s encouragement. That there is something more, than Grantaire’s patent longing, his hiding, and the sweet long twilight of the underworld. In Enjolras’ bed and by his side. Enjolras took him to the surface. Staying is not an option.

“Spring,” Enjolras says, and it’s the first time he’s called Grantaire that. There’s something more tender to it than—than _Persephone_. “Spring, wake up. Come and make the change.”

Grantaire opens his eyes, sighing, and turns to face the triumvirate.

* * *

As Grantaire had long known, Demeter doesn’t back down without a fight.

Zeus may be the king of the gods, and Poseidon of the sea, and Hades of death. None of them, still, can control what Demeter can. None of them understand her level of cruelty, her willingness to dismiss man. He watches from Olympus, and from his throne among the triumvirate, Enjolras occasionally watches him.

The crops don’t come, but Winter does, is born early and harsh and punishing. The fields frost over; men and women begin to hunger. When the cattle are all slaughtered and the stores run empty—Grantaire knows. He knows, just as he’s always known.

He goes to Enjolras. “It’s all right,” he says. “We tried, didn’t we? It was a good time, Hades. This is more freedom than I could’ve expected. It’s all right.”

Enjolras’ eyes burn, and he says, choked, “no.”

“Men are dying,” Grantaire reminds him.

“I know,” Enjolras says, pale. He knows more than anyone.

“Children,” Grantaire presses, feeling frozen.

“And when life is restricted,” Enjolras bites, “creativity and inspiration, when you are restricted, when she nearly kills you and there is no Spring, do you not think they’ll die then?”

Grantaire hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t envisioned an end to his suffering. There was infinite to be had.

“We have to compromise,” Grantaire says, then. “She can have me. Just not—always. I can’t handle always. A few months, at most, out of the year. See it as—an artist, forced to visit their sadistic and rich patron. To grovel.”

In a throne, at the top of Olympus, Enjolras looks out of place. There is a reason Enjolras almost never comes back, and it isn’t loftiness. It isn’t godliness. He is uncomfortable; he is enraged, that mighty gods and goddesses bow to him but laugh at the state of the earth, and in the depths of hell there are dead men whose ideas could’ve moved the whole of the world, if given the chance. If only they had the power.

“For three months,” he says, gravely. “She can have you. That’s all.”

“Three months,” Grantaire agrees. “Three where I roam free in Spring. Three that are hers. Six—“ he stops.

“Six on Olympus,” Enjolras says, and he sounds so sure. “Or wherever you choose. With Hephaestus.”

Something in Grantaire’s chest is dry again, shrinking. “And when,” he manages, “am I permitted back into the Underworld?”

That gets him a start, Enjolras sat up even straighter on his throne. Incredulous, he demands, “you’re coming _back_?”

Stinging nettles. Pricklers. “If my lord so graciously allows,” Grantaire bites.

Enjolras swallows. He seems far away. “It’s the realm of the dead. I know you miss Jehan, but—you are life, Grantaire. You don’t belong there.”

“Life goes where life chooses,” Grantaire says, because—perhaps Enjolras doesn’t know. Of plants and bacteria in the deep frigid sea at the poles, of those thriving in volcanic chutes near magma. Life _survives_. It thrives, best, in the places where it shouldn’t be possible. “Is that not what you fought for, for me? What you pushed me to demand, for myself?”

That golden head shakes, _no_. “I know it served as an escape for you. I know you have positive feelings, towards the Underworld, as a result.”

“How,” says Grantaire, “am I meant to convince you that I stumbled into the Underworld by accident, and it wasn’t some—some planned rebellion? What did you think was my plan, I invade the Underworld by hitching a ride on a shy revolutionary and hide out until I could,” he’s almost laughing now, “ _seduce the lord of the dead_ with my obnoxious, dirty charms and get him to offer to intercede with Zeus on my behalf?”

Enjolras is quiet. Quieter than the dead he rules, than the whistling of the nonexistent winds through the Fields of Asphodel.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Grantaire gapes.

“You are very intelligent,” Enjolras says, “if not particularly principled. With your circumstances, I don’t blame you.”

“What part of Aphrodite, goddess of love, _congratulating_ me on managing to snag you for any amount of time—“ Grantaire cuts off, feels like a mudslide. “If you don’t want me near you, Hades, just. Say the word. One word, and those six months will be spent anywhere you’re not.” Grantaire will think of him, always, but he doesn’t have to see him.

“I will not,” Enjolras’ voice is trembling, “let you trade one jail cell for another.”

“I don’t want a jail cell,” Grantaire agrees. “I want a home. _Roots_.”

They both shudder at that. It can’t be helped, that Grantaire feels the need, bursting out of the shell of him, to straddle Enjolras, in the too-large throne.

“You make me alive,” Grantaire tells him. “ _You_. You make me _believe_.” His heart, lush and teeming in his chest, ripe and moist, beats with wings. “Fuck you, Hades, listen. Do you hear?”

He guides cool hands over his chest, and there, the touch burns. Slips fingers beneath the floating fabric, hitches it aside everywhere, so thigh meets thigh.

“Life is for death,” he tells him, “I live because you are at the end waiting, because you inspire me. You make life more than—than a cycle, where I eat and sleep and drink and create and fuck. You give me purpose. Ideology. I live for you. And at the end, you’ll take me, and I’ll welcome you. So if you want me—take me. _Take me_.”

“I want you,” Enjolras gasps, “I want you, have me in return, I love you, _Grantaire_.”

They move together, again. This is living too. He buries his face in Enjolras’ neck, and writhes, and breathes free.

* * *

The Fates welcome them back, somehow aware of their decision to return before Enjolras and Grantaire themselves even were. When Grantaire stayed here, they had attended a meeting, or two. On lazy mornings when Enjolras went off, Grantaire had taken to joining them at their spinning of the thread of life. He’d long suspected they knew who he was; deciders of life events should recognize life and Spring. Yet they hadn’t told Enjolras, had let him, and for that, his smile when he sees them is beaming.

Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos tumble to them, take their hands.

“We knew you’d work it out,” Clotho cheers with a wink.

“We’re so happy you’re _back_ ,” says Atropos, snapping their scissors, once, and Grantaire laughs, _careful!_

Lachesis hangs back, smiling still, but puts a careful touch to his shoulder once Clotho and Atropos have finished buzzing.

“What you’re thinking,” she says, goddess of fate, “we approve.”

 _Good_ , Grantaire thinks, _because I would do it anyway_.

And then they are there again, in Enjolras’ humble home. The place Grantaire came to think of as _theirs_.

“Any food grown in the Underworld?” Grantaire asks, on a breath.

“Anything,” Enjolras confirms, almost grim. “Grantaire, you are welcome, you don’t need to attach yourself to the Underworld irreversibly to—“

“My choice,” Grantaire reminds him. “A single bite of food is meant to do it, but maybe—something small. Something partially of above.”

“I don’t understand,” Enjolras admits, so Grantaire gets the pot and slumbering seed. It’s awake, now, thrumming with the energy of something. Grantaire sets it on the floor of what’s now their home, in the Underworld, and takes Enjolras’ hand. Holding his hand is all Grantaire needs.

The pot rumbles, then vibrates, the seed singing to his call, to the rhythm of his heart.

“Come on,” Grantaire coaxes. “Dear one, you can do it.” He pulls the trunk up himself, draws the split of the branches, pops the leaves open in rustling joy. The fruit he allows free reign, to be what it chooses, and it forms first a flower that births the ripe husk, a gleaming red.

“What,” Enjolras breathes. “What is it.”

“Honestly,” says Grantaire, “not completely sure. But it’s Underworld soil, and I coughed up the seed, so.” He coughs now. “It’s… something extraordinary.”

The fruit skin splits easily down the middle, and on the inside it gleams still. Runs, with ruby red juices.

“Pomegranate,” Grantaire says then. “I’ll call it pomegranate.”

It’s all seeds inside. Even more potential, jeweled and fresh. Enjolras’ favorite color, and the color of Grantaire’s now-living heart, beneath its mossy green.

So he pops a seed into his mouth. It tastes of love, of the finest of wine. Of golden ichor and ambrosia. It tastes like twilight mornings. He swallows another.

“Two months,” Enjolras says, then, and Grantaire knows it to be true. He swallows another. “Grantaire,” Enjolras warns, but they’d discussed it. He’d made it clear that Grantaire was allowed. If he could—if he could, Grantaire would die for him. For freedom. Die to be here. But a goddess can’t, so he swallows another seed. Another, another, until Enjolras breathes, “six months,” and then he’s gathering Grantaire up.

“I love you,” he tells him, he promises. And then, together, they go to tell Zeus what they’ve done.

* * *

In the Spring, sometimes, Grantaire still chooses to return to the Underworld in the evenings. Spins down, grass sprouting, lilypads and reeds beneath his feet in the Styx as he waves to Montparnasse, the boatman, and bounds by.

Enjolras is always there, either speaking or listening or greeting the young dead. Grantaire doesn’t interrupt, just waits. Blooming. Overflowing. Well—maybe he interrupts sometimes. But Enjolras is asking for it.

“My husband,” Enjolras will say, at the end, inclining his head, when the stares can no longer be ignored. “Excuse me.”

Grantaire in the heart of Spring is wild, perhaps, but it’s a comfort. A freedom, being so patently himself. He is drunk on it; the buzz of cicadas above, the gardens shaking off frost, the singing of farmers and children emerging from the restricting cold of winter.

“Grantaire,” Enjolras murmurs, eyes wide, when he’s practically hunted into their home, cornered. Herded past his books and the paintings Grantaire has made him, silenced in his philosophical musings by the flutter of Grantaire’s tongue on his collarbone.

Grantaire looks at him, and cannot find it in himself to say, _I am sorry_. He wants to make art. He wants to make love. To live.

“Are you always like this, in the Spring?”

“Are you surprised?” Grantaire is surprised, to hear himself release a peal of laughter, unshaded by bitterness or self-defense. He pushes Enjolras back onto the bed of leafy down and moss, loose petals. Whispers into his ear, “everything fucks in the Springtime, love, it’s part of me as much as snowdrop flowers and morning dew.”

That marble countenance is flushed and alive, still practically glowing in the dark.

“We already made love,” Enjolras says, “just—not like this.”

Grantaire doesn’t have to look down, to see what’s tumbling from him, around him. Bursting florals and leaves and maybe even a caterpillar or two, the room teeming with life around them.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh. I… I can repress…?”

“ _No_ ,” Enjolras commands immediately. “No, it’s _you_. I like it. It’s just—different. It worries me, for the you of back then.”

“For the me of the future,” Grantaire reminds him, for with Grantaire, there will be dark times too. Times after his mother; times where Spring is shriveled in heat, sorrowful. “But that’s also me, and I love living with you then too.” He buries in, laces their fingers. “When we’re on Mount Olympus, I want you in your throne again.”

Enjolras sighs, light, but he says, “thrones are meant to be desecrated.”

“It’s an improvement,” Grantaire whispers, nudging closer, and Enjolras smiles. Always the light in the dark. With this world, Grantaire’s heart beats.

“You don’t have to stay,” Enjolras says, after, “just return to me,” and for him, Grantaire always will.

**Author's Note:**

> there were supposed to be like  
> metaphors about Demeter being the bourgeoisie but i am tired u kno  
> there were supposed to be metaphors in general but  
> *tosses papers into the wind*  
> Cosette is like Athena or something, I don't know *finger guns* Gavroche is Hermes. Bahorel is probs like. Hercules or something. *bows and leaves again*  
> thank you for your comments, I live with them. i liiiiiiive!!!  
> here's my tumblr [ here ](https://serinesaccade.tumblr.com/)


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